New Beginnings
by Swiftlet in the Cloud
Summary: Bruce and Diana got more than they bargained for when they finally decided to go on that first date.


**Title: _New Beginnings_**

**Notes: **For Wonderbat385, for the WonderBatHoliday2019 exchange held by maidenoftheworld over on tumblr! I'm really sorry your gift is later than I had planned!

Alternate Timeline - There has been no Robin before the event of this fic.

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After the defeat of Steppenwolf, in between helping Bruce rebuild Wayne Manor into the team's new headquarter and recruit new members, Diana somehow unofficially moved into Wayne Manor. It was just more convenient for her to bunk with the billionaire than to maintain her own residency or book a hotel room whenever she was stateside. It was the logical thing to do since she already had her Paris residence and her civilian job as the Curator for the Department of Antiquities at the Louvre to deal with when she wasn't busy being Wonder Woman. Or so Diana reasoned to herself as she stole a glance at the aforementioned billionaire who was busy typing away at his computer across from her.

They were supposed to be coming up with a plan to recruit the Green Arrow and Black Canary respectively, yet for the past hour, Diana found herself alternating between studying Bruce from beneath her lashes and scowling at the headline of the newspaper in front of her.

_**Bruce Wayne's Hidden Romance with the Sexy Librarian!**_

_**Look out ladies, she moved in!**_

A photo of her and Bruce leaving Wayne Manor in his car also graced the front page of the Gotham Gazette. While Diana had to admit that it wasn't an unflattering photo of her and Bruce's smile as he turned towards her in the picture made Diana's heart fluttered, the headline was so wrong in a hundred different ways - or just about!

"Something interesting in the papers today?" Bruce finally looked up from his computer, and Diana had no idea where the thought came from, but she found the way he took off his reading glasses and briefly pinched the bridge of his nose adorable. Diana hoped she wasn't blushing when she tossed Bruce the papers so he could read the headline himself.

"Well, I can see why you're upset. You work at the museum, not the library," said Bruce. A faint smile playing on his lips as he set the papers down and met Diana's eyes. That smile was quick to turn into a small frown as he reached down to rub his stinging shin. "Ouch!"

"You know that's not what I'm talking about," said Diana as she rolled her eyes. As irritated as she was, she knew she didn't put that much force in her nudge against Bruce to warrant such a dramatic reaction from him.

"Diana, I'm sorry," said Bruce as he ran a hand through his hair. "All joking aside, I should have warned you what you might be up against, what with my reputation and Gotham's gossip network, when you first moved in. I will get the Gazette to take that off their front page today."

"That'll just fuel the fire." Diana took a sip of her coffee to keep herself from frowning again.

"Speaking of adding fuel to the fire..." Bruce hesitated. He broke eye contact with Diana to glance over at Alfred, who, Diana noticed, stared back expectedly and... encouragingly? Bruce looked back at her as he took out two pieces of paper from a nearby black folder. "...I was wondering if you would like to go to the circus with me… as a date. These are tickets for Haley's Circus at the Wayne Charities Benefit Performance tonight, if you're interested."

Diana could hear Bruce holding his breath as she reached across the table to take the tickets from him. "I don't know, Bruce," she stalled. From the corner of her eyes, she could see his face falling and there was a little stabbing feeling in her heart as she dragged the moment out. "You're not giving me a lot of time to prepare. It says here that the performance is in three hours, and I haven't a clue what I'm going to wear," she said as she gingerly ran her finger over the time stamped on the ticket.

Bruce froze in front of her, as if he was surprised that she didn't reject his proposal outright. It took a little tap on his hand from her before he broke out of his stupor. "I was working on how to ask you if you wanted to accompany me since yesterday," Bruce said sheepishly.

"On a date," Diana said with a smile.

"Yes, on a date," Bruce repeated. His smile wasn't as evident as hers, but it was there, nonetheless, giving her a good glimpse of what he was feeling.

_**x-x-x-x-x**_

Their first date was disastrous to say the least. Oh, it wasn't anything on Bruce's or her part that ruined the night. Rather it was the tragedy played out in front of them that neither was able to prevent that had her chalking the night up under her list of "First Dates Gone Wrong." Both she and Bruce had been frozen in their seats when the Flying Graysons' rope broke. In a moment that seemed to take forever yet was over before either of them could react, John and Mary Grayson plummeted towards their untimely deaths.

Diana could see Bruce's flinching again as she squeezed his hand in comfort. She couldn't imagine what nightmarish memories were being pulled to the forefront of his mind as the lone surviving Grayson's cries echoed throughout the big circus tent, cries full of sorrow and grief.

"Hey, look at me," Diana said as she turned Bruce's face away from the stage and towards her. "Are you okay? Are you here with me right now?" She watched his eyes cleared as they met hers, until only anger and determination remained.

"I'm here with you," Bruce replied as he squeezed her hand in return.

Somehow by the end of the night, it was decided that little 8-year-old Richard Grayson was going home with Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince. It seemed wild and slightly irresponsible that the police and the state would let a newly made orphan go with two complete strangers, yet that was the picture on the front page of the Gotham Gazette the following morning. Little Richard Grayson, still in his red and green Flying Graysons leotard, was bundled up in Bruce Wayne's suit jacket and carried in Diana Prince's arms as the three left Haley's Circus.

The gossip that spread with the new headline and accompanying picture had some Gothamites bemoaning Bruce Wayne's lost bachelor status. The more sympathetic Gothamites pitied Richard Grayson's tragic losses while a few others were way too excited about Gotham's supposed new royal instant-family.

Back at Wayne Manor though, things were a little bit trickier. Richard-I-go-by-Dick Grayson's determination to go after the ones who caused his parents' deaths had Bruce and Diana on opposite sides of the issue. While Diana was all for bringing Zucco to justice for the murders of John and Mary Grayson, she was not at all for training Dick to be running around the rooftops of Gotham in a costume and a mask. "Of all the irresponsible things -!"

But Dick had different plans for his childhood, especially after he found out his new guardians were Batman and Wonder Woman on his third night at Wayne Manor. "What? Like that's hard to figure out? You have a round table -"

"-that's King Arthur -" Alfred had interrupted.

"-a round table in your hidden ballroom and the Batcave in the basement. I want in. I want to help you get the man who killed my parents."

At first, Bruce had been on Diana's side; he was also against training Dick for any sort of fight...until the little acrobat snuck out on his fourth night at Wayne Manor to track down Zucco on his own. When Batman and Wonder Woman found Dick at Haley's Circus, he was a little worse for wear, but thankfully alive. Dick had Zucco all tied up and ready to be picked up by the police.

"Dick has talents," was how Bruce had started the conversation after everyone was safe and sound back at Wayne Manor. "We either train him and let him out supervised with one of us at night or he's still going to sneak out behind our backs, but a lot less prepared for what he might face in the Gotham night and without one of us as backups."

Their disagreement had Diana packed up and back in Paris before the week was out. Of course, she had said it was because she had been away from her work for too long and the Louvre needed her back, but it didn't stop her from feeling like she was running way.

_**x-x-x-x-x**_

The holiday seasons around Wayne Manor remained a quiet affair despite the formation of the League the previous year. Clark, Arthur, and Victor had spent the holiday season with their own families after the League's first end-of-the-year meeting. Barry, on the other hand, was Jewish, and while he could have celebrated Hanukkah at Wayne Manor where Bruce and Alfred had kept a room made for him, the season only reminded him of his own family tragedy so he had kept close to Central City instead. With Diana busy in Paris, Bruce and Alfred only bother with a quiet dinner together on the night of the 25th.

This year, despite the new addition to the manor, it was still quiet. The disagreement that sent Diana back to Paris had Bruce in a foul mood all month. While he had kept his promise to train Dick, Bruce also placed Robin, Dick's chosen masked moniker, on comms duty until the boy reached at least double digits in age. And Dick, sensing that he had already won one battle too many at the moment against the famed Dark Knight, agreed to Bruce's condition without much of a fight. While Alfred had done his best, Bruce was still missing Diana too much to make Dick's stay as welcoming as it should have been.

It was shaping up to be quite a sad end to the year when the security alarm for the Batcave blared to life. The alarm had Dick scrambling for his Batarangs (a Christmas gift from Bruce), but it surprisingly brought a faint smile to Bruce's face. There was only person with the ability to enter the Batcave undetected yet bothered to trip his alarm. She was also the person Bruce had been longing to speak to ever since she left. Diana breezed into Bruce's space like she had always been there. Dick looked between Diana and Bruce and was hurrying to leave the room when Diana stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.

"Wait," said Diana gently. She broke eye contact with Bruce to look down at the child in front of her. Hesitating only for a moment, Diana knelt down so that they were at the same eye level. "I'm sorry about before," she told Dick. "The choice on whether or not to put on the mask and fight for justice is yours alone to make, not mine or Bruce's, no matter how well-meaning we intend to be. Some of us are meant to be warriors, and no one can stop us once we set our minds to it. I was just like you when I was younger, sneaking out to train with my Amazon sisters against my mother's wishes. In the end, she thought it was better to offer me her support and to have someone knowledgeable mentored me than to have me sneak around behind her back."

While Diana speaking to Dick, Bruce knew her message was meant for him as well, that she had seen his side of their disagreement.

"I just don't want you to feel like you can't have a childhood or for you to put yourself in danger when you don't have to yet."

"Don't worry," replied Dick, "I'm on only comms duty for the next year and a half, no rooftops yet."

Diana let out a chuckle as she straightened up. "You're something special, aren't you?"

"One of a kind," quipped Dick. "I'll leave you to talk to the big guy." Nodding his head towards Bruce, Dick continued, "He's been moping around and missing you since you left."

As Dick left for the main house, Bruce couldn't help calling after him. "Precocious is more like it!" As for the Amazon in front of him, Bruce didn't know where to start.

"You know," Diana began for him, "if you missed me, you could have just called."

"Would you have pick up?"

"I guess now we will never know, will we?"

The silence between them expanded until Diana turned towards the exits, intending on leaving if that was all Bruce had for her.

Bruce grabbed her hand before she could take a step towards the doors. "Wait. I'm sorry." As Diana turned to face him, Bruce continued, "You came back and I'm being an ass. I did - do miss you."

"I miss you, too."

The soft squeeze of her hand that was in his echoed her words.

"I like you, Bruce. I really do. I'll try to stop walking away every time we have a disagreement … but I can't be the only one always offering an olive branch when we fight either."

"No, I understand," Bruce rushed to reassure her. "We'll both have to put in the effort to make it work, equal partners, so to speak… if you're still interested?"

"Only if I get to choose our next first date. No circus this time," Diana said with a smile.

"No circus," agreed Bruce.

The sound of the intercom interrupted whenever Bruce was going to say next, and Dick's voice filled the Batcave. "Alfred said 'Welcome back, Miss Prince,' and dinner's ready, unless you guys are going on your date right now."

"We're coming!" Diana yelled back before she turned to Bruce. "You know, we're going to have our hands full with that one. I doubt he's going to make it a full year and a half on only comms duty."

"'We' huh?" Bruce couldn't stop himself from smiling.

"Yes, 'we'," replied Diana fondly as they walked hand and hand to dinner.

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**Word Count: 2235**


End file.
